Databases are often used to store information relating to large numbers of objects such as products, works of art, museum pieces, or books. Due to their size, it can be difficult to search or browse through the information stored in these databases. There are usually specialized interfaces for visualizing the information depending on the application. However, there are some universally desirable features of the interface regardless of the application. It should enable the user to navigate and browse through the database quickly. It should be visually compelling and interactive to allow the user to effortlessly manipulate the visualization. Finally, it should be an intuitive interface.
A particularly important application of information visualization is in the area of shopping. People interested in shopping used to have only the option of going to their local brick-and-mortar stores to shop. When the Internet revolution occurred, it was thought that online shopping could provide the shopper with much better ways to visualize and browse through a store's inventory. Online shopping did not end up overtaking traditional brick-and-mortar stores as expected simply because it could not replace many of the inherent benefits of regular shopping. Traditional stores are professionally designed and have very pleasant layouts. A visually immersive experience and natural way of navigating makes shopping in these stores very appealing. In many cases, shoppers do not have a specific item in mind and may want to simply “window shop” through the products. In fact, shoppers quite often discover items they wish to purchase purely by accident; the brick-and-mortar stores are very conducive for browsing and this type of “accidental discovery.”
Current online shopping is certainly not without its merits, and consequently, many retail stores have created an online presence as well. Online shopping can be quickly accomplished in the comfort of one's own home or office at any time, day or night. Online stores can provide a much wider selection and larger inventory since they require zero physical store space; this in turn generally leads to lower prices. Current online stores often include a web-based user interface that allows the user to “browse” through lists or images of products by category. Specifically, if a user selects a category using the interface, either a written list of products or images representing the products are displayed that fall within the selected category. Alternatively, the user interface can include a search engine that allows the user to perform a word or term search to locate a specific product or category within the database. Such a search engine is very efficient when the shopper knows precisely the model of the object to be purchased.
There are many problems associated with the above browsing and searching techniques. For instance, if a user does not know what category the product that they are looking for falls into, they must either guess which category to look through or look through each list of products for each category until the desired product is found. In addition, the user may not know the exact terminology used to describe the desired product on the website and as a result, the term/word search engine can become useless. As a result, due to the size of the database of products and the manner in which the user interface is designed, it becomes a cumbersome task requiring the user to navigate through continuous windows of web pages of product information. In the case of accidental discovery, the above described search tools are not even applicable and current browsing techniques become inadequate or cumbersome.
Users encounter a different browsing experience when viewing images, such as artwork, on a website. In this case, the user is typically not searching for a specific item but instead is simply randomly viewing the objects (i.e., artwork) of the database. As a result, the above browsing and searching techniques are particularly unsuited for this type of viewing experience since the user is not searching for any specific object.
A much more compelling interface is the use of interactive three-dimensional graphical environments, which combine many of the benefits of online shopping with those of brick-and-mortar stores. Three-dimensional graphical (or virtual) environments have been used in the past to allow viewing of and navigation through information in an intuitive manner. Specifically, a three-dimensional graphical environment allows a user to intuitively navigate within a virtual space and hence easily locate and view items within the space, thus overcoming the disadvantages of browsing and searching by category and search engines. Even the most novice computer user can appreciate its immersive and natural interface.
Many three-dimensional graphical environments, especially those found in the gaming and entertainment industries, possess the “look and feel” of a real-world environment, and in fact can be quite visually stunning. However, these environments are predesigned and predetermined for their specific application. As a result, the user's experience is restricted to the designer's preconceived ideas as to how to best arrange the environment for optimized navigation, searching, browsing, and accidental discovery. If the user's and designer's views are different, then the user's experience within the environment may be diminished. Moreover, such static environments cannot easily accommodate dynamically changing data objects and user customization. Hence, what would be desirable is a customizable and automatically designed three-dimensional graphical environment based on user preferences.
The present invention is an apparatus and method of automatically generating a three-dimensional graphical environment for viewing a plurality of objects in a database having improved browsability.